Local court case led to landmark Supreme Court ruling

On Friday afternoon, May 27, 1945, a minor case involving a landlord-tenant dispute was about to be heard in County Judge Joe Browning’s court. It became an epic legal battle that landed in the Supreme Court and became one of the landmark cases involving freedom of the press and constitutional law.

The case was styled “Jackson v. Mayes.” It was routine at the beginning. A man named Bush Jackson was acting as the property agent for the Flato family and Harry Heaney who owned the former Elks Club building at the corner of Starr and Water streets (still there today).

As agent, Bush Jackson leased the building to Linn K. “Doc” Mason. His nightclub on North Beach, the Dragon Grill, was Corpus Christi’s top nightspot until the morning of Jan. 15, 1944, when it burned to the ground. Mason wanted to move into a new place in downtown Corpus Christi. Jackson leased the Elks building to Mason on condition that he break the lease held by Joe Mayes, who operated the Playboy Club on the ground floor.

When the case came up for trial Mayes had been drafted and was stationed at Fort Hood. His wife was operating the Playboy Club in his absence.

The trial was marked by bitter exchanges between lawyers and appeals to Judge Joe Browning for justice. The case went to a six-man jury on Saturday evening at 7 p.m. Judge Browning told the jury to bring in a verdict in favor of Bush Jackson, breaking the lease held by Joe Mayes.

The jurors balked and twice returned with verdicts in favor of Joe Mayes. Judge Browning sent them back with orders from the bench to return with a verdict in favor of Jackson. At 10 p.m. on Saturday night, the jurors were locked up for the night, confined in the courthouse jury room.

On Sunday morning at 9 a.m., Judge Browning told the jurors they would bring back a directed verdict for Bush Jackson or he would keep them locked up another night.

Attorneys for Joe Mayes urged the jurors to follow the judge’s instructions. After 15 hours, the jury, with great reluctance, brought back a verdict in favor of Bush Jackson. With the verdict the jury also issued a statement that said, “It is to be understood that this verdict is rendered and recorded on the order of this court against the conscience of the jury.”

The judge had forced the jurors to do his bidding but the story was far from over. The Caller-Times on Sunday reported that “A jury with a conscience last night refused to bring in a directed verdict that it did not agree with.”

Two days later, Bob McCracken, the paper’s managing editor and popular columnist, wrote that the judge’s actions showed the need for judges to be well-trained in the law. Back then, state law did not require county court judges to have a law degree. Browning was a farmer and rancher and had no legal training.

Bob McCracken wrote that “people don't like the idea of such goings on, especially when a man in the service of his country (Joe Mayes) seems to be getting a raw deal. That was the travesty of justice, the judge’s refusal to hear both sides. That’s where a legal background would have served him in good stead. It’s no wonder the jury balked and public opinion is outraged.”

Browning was incensed over the newspaper coverage. He cited the publisher of the Caller-Times, Conway Craig, the managing editor, Bob McCracken, and the reporter, Tom Mulvaney, who covered the case, for contempt of court. The judge said the articles were inaccurate and unfair and held him up to public scorn.

At a hearing on the contempt citation, Judge Browning found Craig, McCracken and Mulvaney guilty of contempt and turned them over to Sheriff John Harney and ordered them held in the county jail for three days.

The newspapermen were booked, fingerprinted, and their mugshots snapped. They were taken to the jail kitchen where they had coffee with Sheriff Harney and were given a late breakfast of huevos rancheros, which McCracken said hit the spot. In the cell, they were allowed a stream of visitors, including a woman who promised to bake them a hacksaw cake. McCracken took his typewriter to write the Crow’s Nest column from the jail cell. They were released on a writ of habeas corpus after five hours.

The case went to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals which upheld Judge Browning. The appeals court ruled that the newspaper coverage was “calculated to obstruct and impede the administration of justice and to embarrass the judge.”

The editor of the paper, Robert M. Jackson, who was not cited for contempt, defended the paper's action. "We have every right to report to the people what is happening in their court without any editorial direction from the bench."

The case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. On May 28, 1947, the high court reversed the findings of Judge Browning and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The 6-3 opinion was written by Justice William O. Douglas.

The salient points of the opinion noted that a trial is a public event, that what happens in a courtroom is public property, that a judge cannot use the power of his office to protect himself from criticism, even if it is unfair criticism.

After the ruling the Caller-Times in an editorial said, “The decision will remain on the books. It becomes, in effect, part of the law of the land. The bulwark which the people of these United States have been erecting around their liberties, we believe, is just a little more secure because of it.”

In this famous case, like many decisions that involve great principles of the law, the people in the case became somewhat incidental to the outcome.

The Caller-Times won its case but it was a costly victory. The paper spent $36,000 in legal fees, a hefty sum back then. Joe Mayes never got a new trial, lost his lease and his Playboy Club went under. “Doc” Mason got the Elks Club building for his posh Dragon Grill, which became famous for its illegal gambling. And Judge Joe Browning never served another term as judge, after losing a bid for re-election in 1946. But the case itself was a landmark Supreme Court decision still studied and cited today as “Craig v. Harney.”

Murphy Givens in 2014. He started writing a weekly column on the history of Corpus Christi and ...more

Murphy Givens in 2014. He started writing a weekly column on the history of Corpus Christi and South Texas in 1998. He retired from the newspaper in 2009 but continued to write the column.